Nike Reps- Does Nike have a freeze on opening new accounts?

guys are probably going to have accounts 4-12 months before opening up and they can always order whatever is atonce but the may not have any futures set up since they were not in buis

guys are probably going to have accounts 4-12 months before opening up and they can always order whatever is atonce but the may not have any futures set up since they were not in buis

Over-distribution dilutes product.

This is probably true, and it happens quite often. Getting your foot in the door is probably the hardest part. Once you're in, dealing with the reps can be even more delightful. Same goes with all footwear moguls... enjoy.

Nike is a tough one to crack, but not all the big running shoe brands are hard to get. I just opened a running store and got 4 big brands right off the bat. Nike and Adidas wouldn't talk yet, but they're shoes aren't doing well anyway. You've just got to have a store people come to and talk about, then the brands will come to you to open a acct.

Nike not doing well? Yeah, keep telling yourself that.

Nike does well with spikes, but that is it. In 1985 Nike was 65% of our business. Today they are 6%. You can certainly survive without Nike. You MUST have Asics and Brooks.

It is true wrote:

Nike does well with spikes, but that is it. In 1985 Nike was 65% of our business. Today they are 6%. You can certainly survive without Nike. You MUST have Asics and Brooks.

even though they keep stealing market share from asics...i dont know where you own a store, but that is definatly not typical.

I would love to see it turn around but that is the case now. As far as stealing market shares from anyone?????? That would be re capture. They owned it at one time and gave it away through incompetence.

You must have Asics and Brooks because store owners only sell those brands. I've seen plenty of other brands sold when given an opportunity, but no one ever takes the time to bring them out. Honestly, are Asics and Brooks shoes that much different/better than the other brands? Not anymore, no one makes "bad" shoes, it's just a matter of personal preference on the retailers side. Runner's come in and look for advice from "experts" and their job is to inform and give options, not throw a pair of 2120's at every person who walks in the door, which is what happens all too often from my experience. In 1985 there were not 5-6 brands that made decent running shoes, there was 2, that's why Nike was 65% of your business, not because they make bad shoes today.

It is true wrote:

Nike does well with spikes, but that is it. In 1985 Nike was 65% of our business. Today they are 6%. You can certainly survive without Nike. You MUST have Asics and Brooks.

i couldn't agree more with you. it's really sad to see associates at the store level who don't even want to take the time to find out what's going on with shoes not called 2120 or adrenaline.

they think because they ran a 3:40 marathon they know what's going on and that only asics and brooks are shoes for "real" runners.

by the way, i understand that right now stores can't even get fill ins for nike because their new product is selling too well. people began putting in huge fill in orders so fast that nike couldn't keep up with it. it may be a few months before production catches back up to demand.

nike along with store owners didnt think their product would book/sell well so they adjusted the amount made according to their forcasts.

Nike and the stores shot themselves in the foot by not thinking the product would move.

As for having asics, hows the shipping been lately? Thats what i thought.....

Asics shipping has been a disaster lately, but Nike's hasn't been much better. This year's Pegasus and the past two years of the women's (not mens) Structure Triax have been enormously successful, the Structure mostly due to its very roomy, high-volume fit. The Max Moto was a good shoe for us, but at least two-thirds of customers complain that the forefoot Zoom Air is raised and that it feels like an uncomfortable bump.

Our top two brands are Asics and New Balance, then a jump to Brooks, Saucony, Mizuno (all close together in sales) and finally Nike and Adidas. But Nike and Adidas are growing, along with Mizuno and Brooks, while other brands are shrinking in sales a bit. We also sell a few shoes from Etonic, which are actually reasonably strong, but still small overall as it's only one shoe for men and two for women.

Each brand has its quirks, though. Mizuno is by far the worst at keeping inventory for at-once orders. With other brands, a backorder is often a week or two. With Mizuno, it's usually a month or two. Saucony's change to Pro/Grid has been very well-received by our customers.

In our store, I'm the one who deals with sending back the returns to the respective companies. For the most part, the volume of returns mirror the percentaget of sales for each company. Most of the time, you have to make up BS reasons to put on the shoe ("caused a blister" or "caused forefoot pain) before we send them back.

For what it's worth, I find with the Nike returns, far more often than any of the other companies, the shoes actually do have some sort of defect, the most common of which are seam failure on an upper somewhere and outsole delamination. It's surprisingly rare how many busted air bladders we get back.

Interesting. We get very few burst air bladders back. We actually get a ton of Asics defects. I think it has to do with their rapid growth in the non-specialty market, that they're letting quality control slide. Little things like torn eyelets or the little "lace-holder" on the tongue of the shoe, misstitching, delaminating outsoles (a big problem with the Kinsei), and lately an epidemic of missizing, especially wides and narrows fitting a very different length than that same size in a medium.

rollemup wrote:

guys are probably going to have accounts 4-12 months before opening up and they can always order whatever is atonce but the may not have any futures set up since they were not in buis

What is atonce?

Brooks and Asics are definitely huge. At the running store where I work over summer (I'm in college right now) we have MANY other brands than Brooks and Asics, and excellent variety in those other brands to boot. But Brooks and Asics are consistently our best performers. The Adrenaline and 2100 series are our top two sellers by FAR. Mizuno is getting bigger and better, and Saucony is holding its own. Pearl Izumi is starting to become a player.... we have done well with them and they are by far the fastest growing brand that we carry in terms of sales. Nike... we do OK but I just don't see it as a dominant brand at the store.

the630miler wrote:

What is atonce?